I just bought a new flat screen TV and when i hooked it up i know have an extreme amount of new channels all with weird numbers. i.e. 104-309, 106-9 ect...
What are these channels and why do i suddenly have them with this new TV. I only subscribe to the basic cable package from Comcast and do not have a cable box, i just use the cable out of the wall and directly plug it in the TV>
Why are the channels not the standard numbers for these stations?

thanks

PS: I am ignorant to tv technology so please dont use lots of acronyms, if you can help it.

If the TV does not see the "Virtual Number" of a channel, it will display the "Actual" number.
That is the first number. The second number is called a sub channel. You are
right about the cable box. It converts the Actual channel number and sub channel numbers to a single number listed in Comcast's Channel guide. Don't get too comfortable with these channels. Comcast changes them quite often. The cable box handles any reassignments when they occur. This makes channel reassignments invisible to cable box users.

Do you know why the channel numbers are different? Is that because i dont have a cable box to convert the channels to Comcasts numbers?

that's exactly right!!! see, you know more than you thought you did!

you may be aware of this already but keep in mind these are DIGITAL cable chs. it may be simpler for you to think of QAM as digital cable. and remember that it's different from ATSC= digital over-the-air chs(OTA).

so you're getting any digital ch Comcast isn't scrambling. my guess is you get your local networks plus any independent stations, the music chs, & perhaps chs like the weather ch or WGN.

good news-at least some of these chs give you access to HD programming. bad news-you'll pretty much have to figure out which ch #'s go with which programming.

did you do a digital cable ch scan when you setup your new TV? you'll need to if you want to use the remote's up/down button to scan thru the chs. once you've done this(& figured out what #'s go with what chs) you can use the add/remove feature to keep only the chs you watch in the tuner memory & just surf thru them.

also there's no way I'm aware of to change the ch mapping-unless you rent one of Comcast's cable boxes & don't use the TV tuner.

BTW the subject of this thread really belongs in the HDTV Technical forum, so any future questions re: your TV, your cable access, or digital TV tech in general should be asked there. where you'll likely get much more info than you wanted!!!

... and when i hooked it up i know have an extreme amount of new channels all with weird numbers. i.e. 104-309, 106-9 ect...
What are these channels and why do i suddenly have them with this new TV. I only subscribe to the basic cable package from Comcast...

Silicon Dust is not very accurate, because cableco's change QAM channel locations on a somewhat regular basis. It's much better to simply ask in the local topic for your area, to be found in this master local topic: